Adversity The Mother Of Invention;Can’t Is For Losers.…

Yesterday I spoke to the glar­ing holes in the secu­ri­ty which was in place at the two mas­sive Political ral­lies held in Half-Way-Tree Square and Sam Sharpe Square by the two major polit­i­cal par­ties respectively.
Though my Article was harsh­ly crit­i­cal of the police it was not meant to degrade or demean the Agency I spent 10 years of my life in. It was intend­ed to give the Agency an oppor­tu­ni­ty to think out­side the box com­men­su­rate with the changed and ever chang­ing times.
To my many friends who feel betrayed by my crit­i­cisms , there is such a thing as “con­struc­tive crit­i­cism” , the type you get from your real friends.
RALLY’S SHOOTING EXPOSES WEAKNESS IN ABILITY OF POLICE TO PROVIDE REAL SECURITY..

In the Article I laid out what I thought would be the required amount of offi­cers to ade­quate­ly secure the safe­ty of the peo­ple and can­di­dates at either ral­lies as well as to secure busi­ness­es and oth­er pri­vate prop­er­ty with­ing the envi­rons of the venues.
That num­ber was a thou­sand offi­cers under the com­mand of at least one Deputy Commissioner of Police who under­stand logis­tics, crowd con­trol as well as oth­er secu­ri­ty issues which are like­ly to emerge in sit­u­a­tions where large amounts of peo­ple are gath­ered together.
The plan includ­ed a call for cops on horse-back which are ter­rif­ic at crowd con­trol. It also called for offi­cers with canines which are tremen­dous val­ue assets , par­tic­u­lar­ly where crowd com­pli­ance is a necessity.
I made those rec­om­men­da­tions against the back­ground of the basic prin­ci­ples of the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s own mis­sion statement.
(1) Protection of life and Property.
(2) Preservation of Peace and Good Order.
(3) Prevention and detec­tion of crime.

In 1982 when I entered the Academy the mis­sion state­ment of the JCF was as I pre­sent­ed it above. Nowadays the JCF says this is it’s mis­sion statement.
The Mission of the Jamaica Constabulary Force and its Auxiliaries is to Serve, Protect and Reassure the peo­ple in Jamaica through the deliv­ery of impar­tial and pro­fes­sion­al Services aimed at main­te­nance of law and order, pro­tec­tion of life and prop­er­ty, pre­ven­tion and detec­tion of crime and the preser­va­tion of peace.
Same thing right?
Well pret­ty much, just a lit­tle more wordy, in the end it remains the same.

I ask you my read­ers to remem­ber this mis­sion state­ment as you digest the remain­der of what I will present to you .
By the Constabulary’s own num­bers the offi­cial JCF staff num­bers in 2011 was 9,930 plus 55 aux­il­iary posi­tions, mak­ing a total of 9,985; its cur­rent strength (as of 2011) is 8,441. Since then the JCF and it’s Auxillary ISCF has merged adding rough­ly anoth­er 2’000 offi­cers to the ranks of the JCF.
What I found incred­i­ble was the push-back I received most­ly from for­mer mem­bers of the JCF who were intent on telling me what can­not be accom­plished, large­ly because they can­not per­ceive it.
One of the rea­sons I dropped every­thing and walked away from the JCF was not nec­es­sar­i­ly because the pay was shit­ty. It was pri­mar­i­ly because I real­ized that based on exist­ing atti­tudes the Force as a ser­vice deliv­er enti­ty had no real plan to change or to grow into an agency which deliv­ers on it’s promise.

I real­ized from my van­tage point then that if I stayed for anoth­er hun­dred years the lev­el of con­tri­bu­tion I would be able to make would me neg­li­gi­ble exact­ly because of exist­ing mindsets.
Literally every­one who pushed back against my sug­ges­tions talked about why it can’t be done. Why we should adjust our think­ing to the sit­u­a­tion as it is,rather than how it should be.
Unfortunately I nev­er believed in accept­ing fail­ure as accept­able. Things gets changed by peo­ple will­ing to think and act out­side the box.
Adversity is the moth­er of inven­tion, not a rea­son to pick up the ball and go home because it’s too hard.
I was nev­er com­fort­able wal­low­ing in the mud of medi­oc­rity because it’s easy . I believe in get­ting down in the mud and fight­ing to make a dif­fer­ence, fight­ing for change. Real change is nev­er easy. It has to be earned.
The JCF has no truer friend than me but I would not be a real friend was I to accept that the lev­el of ser­vice being deliv­ered by the agency was val­ue for money.

“IT CAN’T BE DONE THEY SAY” 

The police can­not change the fact that many with­in the lead­er­ship of the Government and Opposition par­ty are in bed with Jamaica’s most dan­ger­ous criminals.
But the Police can exem­pli­fy it’s ser­vice by inves­ti­gat­ing and plac­ing crim­i­nals before the courts regard­less of their sta­tion. There is noth­ing in the JCF Act which places any Jamaican above the law.
When the Police fail to inves­ti­gate and arrest politi­cians with ties to crim­i­nals it embold­ens every­one to dis­re­gard the laws. So whether the crim­i­nal is in Kings House , Jamaica House , or any oth­er House, if they break the law the police must enforce the laws.
Recently the com­mis­sion­er called for mem­bers to avoid sid­ing with any polit­i­cal par­ty . The com­mis­sion­er threat­ened rank and file mem­bers with inter­dic­tion and sus­pen­sion if they are caught engag­ing in politicking.
I ask the com­mis­sion­er ? “what is the penal­ty for the fail­ure of the high com­mand to Investigate crim­i­nals in posi­tions of pow­er”?

The police can­not change the fact that the Governing PNP and to a less­er extent the Opposition JLP has lit­er­al­ly turned the coun­try into spe­cif­ic yet sep­a­rate lit­tle zones of polit­i­cal exclusions.
But the Police can remain neu­tral so that when they are forced to take action they are not accused of partiality.
The Police can­not change that the sys­tem put in place by both polit­i­cal par­ties cre­at­ed and con­tin­ue to cre­ate pow­er­ful above the law gang­sters who deliv­er votes.
But the Police can use their cra­ni­ums to inves­ti­gate, entrap and ensnare these hood­lums and their polit­i­cal patrons , place them before the courts or bring jus­tice to them somehow.
The police can­not pass laws.
However the police has with­in it’s pow­er the abil­i­ty to impact leg­is­la­tion, much small­er groups have had incred­i­bly influ­ence on leg­is­la­tion> The (indecom)Act is a good example.

Jamaica may be a crim­i­nal paradise .
The police does not have to engage in crim­i­nal conduct.
The depart­ment may be stretched as some have suggested .
Jamaicans under­stand force and strength, putting less than ade­quate amounts of offi­cers to cov­er an event places offi­cers lives at risk it serves no use­ful pur­pose except as win­dow dressing.

The police may not be able to get every weapon being smug­gled into a venue .
But there should be no cir­cum­stances in which sev­er­al peo­ple are shot in a venue where the police is on site yet there are no arrests.
The events of 2010 which the world watched in real time occur­ring in Jamaica should have been a warn­ing and a come-to-Jesus-moment for the ‘self serv­ing politi­cians on both sides.
Police sta­tions burned to the ground. Police offi­cers and civil­ians alike killed . Most pro­found­ly was the coa­lesc­ing of vary­ing fac­tions against the Jamaican state. It required an all out effort using assets from the Military to return the Jamaican state to the elect­ed officials.

Rather than thank the secu­ri­ty Forces the Government went ahead and gave more pow­er to (indecom),the brain­child of Bruce Golding and Criminal Rights lob­by Jamaicans for Justice. No one could argue that the police did not need seri­ous over­sight but (inde­com) is not it. Giving unchecked pow­er to a Napoleonic, ego-mani­a­cal nar­cis­sist is not the way to go about it. That is the anti­dote for empow­er­ing criminals.
Soon (inde­com) will want to search Jamaica Defense Force Headquarters to see whether the mil­i­tary has cer­tain types of ordinances.….
Oh wait !!!!
They already tried that . If this isn’t pop­py-show I don’t know what is?
Oh by the way they crow that police killings are down , true dat, but wait, the mass killing of inno­cent Jamaicans con­tin­ue at a mer­ry clip and is actu­al­ly get­ting worse >
So as far as the (inde­com) Act is con­cerned, “Mission accom­plished”

Rather than invest in the secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus of the Island the PNP gov­ern­ment ever the anti-police Administration decid­ed to con­vene an Inquiry into what hap­pened in Tivoli Gardens in 2010. At the head of that Inquiry is an arro­gant for­eign­er whose sole intent is pos­tur­ing and try­ing to show the Security forces in a bad light.
Did I men­tion the fact that that fias­co is still going on with costs in the hun­dreds of millions?
Of course why not if every PNP can eat a food why not bring in a pompous Bajan rel­ic to eat a food as well?
Additionally well over $100 mil­lion in com­pen­sato­ry dam­ages to the very peo­ple who har­bored and encour­aged a crim­i­nal empire in their com­mu­ni­ty for decades.

Yes every­thing that I heard yes­ter­day about why the police can­not be bet­ter are real argu­ments. My dis­agree­ment with those views is this, despite all of the fore­gone the police can do a bet­ter job. The police has a man­date, remem­ber I asked you to keep the mis­sion state­ment in mind?
Yes the police can be bet­ter despite the ” crim­i­nal sup­port­ing shit-heads” in Jamaica House and Gordon House.
Don’t tell me what can­not be done let’s join hands and hearts and change the par­a­digm, instead of suc­cumb­ing to the nar­ra­tive of can’t.